The cross examination of Professor Peter
Longerich on his report and on the following
document composed by him will be found from
February 23, 2000 of the daily transcripts

Glossary of some
terms used by the NS regime in connection with the
murder of European Jews

1. Introduction

1.1 The National Socialist regime generally
avoided speaking of the murder of the European Jews
by name, i.e. they avoided the terms "killing"
(töten), "liquidating" (Liquidierung),
"shooting" (Erschießung) etc. Instead, the
National Socialists used "cover up" expressions for
the murder of the European Jews.

1.2 The explanation for this linguistic
camouflage lies in the fact that in principle the
Nazi regime regarded the systematic murder of the
European Jews as a state secret. Himmler himself,
in a speech to SS officers in Poznan on 4th October
1944, spoke of this principle of secrecy and
silence with respect to the "extirpation of the
Jewish people" (Ausrottung des jüdischen
Volkes), as Himmler, exceptionally, openly referred
to it in this speech: ~ also want to talk to you
quite frankly about a very grave matter. We can
talk about it quite openly among ourselves, but
nevertheless we can never speak of it publicly.
Just as we did not hesitate on 30th June 1934
(Himmler refers here to the liquidation of
Röhm and the SA leadership, P.L.) to do our
duty as we were bidden, and to stand comrades who
had lapsed up against the wall and shoot them, so
we have never spoken about it and will never speak
of it. It was a natural assumption of tact - an
assumption which, thank God, is inherent in us -
that we never discussed it among ourselves, never
spoke of it." In the next paragraph he said: "Most
of you will know what it means to have a hundred or
five hundred or a thousand corpses lying together
before you. To have been through this and -
disregarding exceptional cases of human weakness -
to have remained decent, that is what has made us
tough. This is a glorious page in our history, one
that has never been written and can never be
written."[1]

1.3 According to this basic rule of secrecy
surrounding the murder of the Jews, it was
forbidden, even at the highest party levels, to
openly discuss this question. On 11 July 1943,
Bormann sent a circular "on the instructions of the
Führer" to the party Gau and Reich
leaders:

"Regarding public dealings with the Jewish
Question, every discussion of a future complete
solution must cease. Nevertheless, it may be
mentioned that the Jews as an entity are to be
drawn into appropriate work detail."[2]

1.4 In accordance with this principle of
secrecy, the organisations employed to carry out
the genocide of the Jews received strict
instructions not to use terms such as "liquidate"
(liquidieren), "execute" (hinrichten) etc. Some
examples can be cited of this.

1.5 For example, in January 1942 the head of the
Gestapo, Müller, issued an ordinance according
to which terms such as "liquidation" (Liquidation)
and "liquidate" (liquidieren) were words "used by
the Soviet rulers". In German reports, essays, etc.
such terms should only be used in this
connection.[3] In November 1941 Rödl,
the Commandant of the Gross-Rosen concentration
camp, enquired of the inspectorate of the
concentration camps what he should state by way of
justification on a list of names of SS members whom
he wished to put forward to receive the war service
cross because of their participation at executions:
in the column headed "Justification and comments of
intermediate superior", should he insert the words
"execution" (Exekution) or "special action"
(Sonderaktion)? The concentration camps
inspectorate replied that "execution of special
tasks important for the war effort" be given as the
reason. The inspectorate added: "The word
"execution" may not be used in any
case."[4]

1.6 The following report will concentrate on
some of the "camouflage" terms preferred by the
National Socialists when speaking of the murder of
the Jews. These include, on the one hand, terms
which in general use did not have the meaning of
"kill" (such as resettle (umsiedeln), deport
(abschieben), evacuate (evakuieren) or general,
non-specific terms which can be used in the sense
of "kill" but which can also have another meaning,
such as exterminate (vernichten), extirpate
(ausrotten) or the term remove (entfernen).

1.7 The analysis of the actual meaning of these
terms in the language of the National Socialists is
complicated by the fact that even the National
Socialists themselves did not stop using these
terms in their original innocent" meanings. The
question of whether these terms were used in the
sense of "kill" must be decided from the context.
With appropriate care, this can be done in almost
every case.

1.8 As far as I am aware, no analysis of the
history of the definition of these words during the
Nazi period, examining all accessible quotations in
order to determine their meaning, has been
undertaken. I will therefore concentrate on a few
examples.

2.1 This term was used from summer 1941 onwards
in the occupied Soviet territories to refer to the
systematic murder of the Jews.

2.2 For example, the local military command of
Bakhchisarai, a Wehrmacht headquarters in the
occupied Soviet Union, reported on the killing of
local Jews in its activity report of 14.12.41 as
follows: "The Jews who lived here were not rich and
led a relatively modest life. The S.D. completed
the shooting of the Jews on 13.12.41".[5]
In the report, the word "shooting"
(Erschießung) has been deleted and has been
replaced by the handwritten word "resettlement"
(Aussiedlung).

2.3 An activity report of the local military
command of Jewpatoria, dated 21.12.41, was
similarly amended. The original report stated that
the "residences of the Jews executed by the SS were
taken over by the local military command', while
the superior department, the superior field Command
533, replaced the word "executed" (exekutierten)
with resettled "(umgesiedelten).[6]

2.4 On 5.2.43, the commander of the security
police and the SD in White Ruthenia issued a
command ordering the resettlement" (Umsiedlung) of
the Jews living in the city of Sluzk. The order
continued: "At the resettlement site arc two pits.
A group of ten leaders and men work at each pit,
relieving each other every two hours." The command
also stated which person should be responsible for
"issuing cartridges" (Patronenausgeber) at the
"resettlement site"(
Umsiedlungsgelände).[7]

2.5 The Jews outside the Soviet Union were
gradually included in the systematic extermination
programme from autumn 1941 onwards. The term
resettle (aussiedeln, umsiedeln) was accordingly
now also used outside the occupied Soviet
territories to refer to deportation to
extermination camps. For example, Himmler used the
term "resettlement" (Umsiedlung) in a document
dated July 1942 to order the murder of the great
majority of the Jews of the Polish territory by the
end of the year: "I order that the resettlement of
the entire Jewish population of the Polish
territory be carried out and completed by 316t
December 1942.[8] In fact "resettlement"
(Umsiedlung) here meant deportation to the
extermination camps Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec
.[9]

3. evakuieren (noun: Evakuierung), English to
evacuate

3.1 Evacuation originally means the organised
transport of a fairly large number of people in
order to protect them from danger. In the context
of the Second World War, this word was used in
particular for the transport of people from cities
at risk of aerial bombardment. However, evacuation
was also used to describe the deportation of the
Jews to eastern European ghettos, concentration
camps or extermination camps.

3.2 For example, the term appears in the report
of the meeting of 6.3.42 in the Reich security head
office, at which Eichmann spoke of the procedural
guidelines for the "further evacuation of 55,000
Jews from the former Reich and from the Ostmark and
the Protectorate".[10] A report of 26th
December 1941, in which the head of the police
force, Salitter, reported in detail about his
experiences accompanying and supervising a
transport of 1007 Jews from the Rhineland to
Latvia, is entitled "Report on the evacuation of
Jews to Riga".[11] On 20th February 1943,
the Reich security head office issued "Guidelines
on the technical implementation of the evacuation
of Jews to the east (Auschwitz concentration
camp)"; this includes an instruction that the
registers should not indicate the destination (i.e.
Auschwitz), but should merely state "moved to an
unknown destination" (unbekannt
verzogen).'[12]

3.3 A report of the Lodz Gestapo dated 9 June
1942 reads: "In the course of setting up the
district ghetto, it initially proved necessary to
make space for the Jews to be settled in here. For
this purpose, a considerable number of Jews unfit
for work were evacuated from the ghetto and
transported to the special command."[13]
The "special command" here referred to is the
command which operated the gas truck station in
Chelmno in which the Jews from the Waiki legion
were murdered.

3.4 Since deportation to the ghettos,
concentration camps and extermination camps
normally meant the murder of the deported persons,
evacuation in particular was also used as a synonym
for murder. This is particularly clear in a speech
by Himmler given to SS leaders on 4 October 1944
(already quoted above). Himmler speaks here of the
"Jewish evacuation programme, the extermination of
the Jewish people". A few sentences further on he
makes it unmistakably clear what is meant thereby,
when he says that most of those present "will know
what it means to have a hundred, or five hundred or
a thousand corpses lying together before
you."[14]

4. abschieben (noun: Abschiebung), English to
deport

4.1 Originally "deport" means the physical
removal of foreigners from the Reich territory, in
accordance with the law. Under the National
Socialists, from 1939 onwards this expression was
used for the forced transport of Jews to ghettos,
concentration camps or extermination camps.

4.2 For example, the expression "deportation"
can be found in Goebbels' diaries of 18.11.41,
according to which Heydrich had on the previous day
reported to Goebbels on his intentions regarding
the deportation of the Jews from the Reich
territory". This meant the deportation of the Jews
from the Reich territory to the ghettos of Lodz,
Riga and Minsk."[15]

4.3 For example, on 27.9.41, Heydrich informed
the official chief of the security police: "The
deportation of the Jews to the foreign language
district, deportation over the demarcation line,
has been approved by the Führer." This
referred to the deportation, planned at that time,
of all Jews under German sovereign territory to a
"Jewish reservation in the Polish
territory.'[16]

4.4 The head of the Gestapo, Müller,
informed Eichmann on 18 October

1939 "that the resettlement and deportation of
Poles and Jews to the territory of the future
Polish residual state requires central management".
The deportations of Jews from Vienna, Moravska
Ostrava and Katowice to Nisko am San, already
started by Eichmann, were therefore
interrupted.[17]

4.5 On 29 June, the Gestapo headquarters in
Brussels informed the Mechlin camp that, on the
basis of Himmlers instruction, "From now on, Jews
of Belgian nationality were to be immediately
included in the deportation programme". This
referred to deportation to the Auschwitz
extermination camp; until that time, these
deportations from Belgium had included only Jews of
non-Belgian nationality.[18]

DO YOU have any expert comments to make on
Professor Longerich's views on the German
language? Please click this button and e-mail
them immediately to David Irving (all
confidences will be respected).